FIFTEEN thousand public servants will lose their jobs in the North West’s ‘big two’ cities over the next five years, according to independent research.
In Manchester, 7,648 jobs will go amongst the total of 90,000 people working in public services in the city, while 30 miles away in Liverpool a further 7,523 jobs will be axed from the 88,000 total.
The study, by a leading consultancy, does not include figures for other urban centres in the North West, which has a total of 690,000 people working in the public sector.
That means the true scale of the job losses is likely to grow much bigger because of the North West’s reliance on public services.
In the last ten years, the public sector in the North West has grown by 100,000 jobs, according to Local Futures.
Their report says: “During the finance-led prosperity boom of the last decade, the previous Labour government helped recovery and regeneration in the older industrial regions of the North of England, Scotland and Wales, in part by re-distributing tax revenues from London and the Greater South East, in the form of increased levels of public sector employment.
“As a result, in many of these localities, net job creation has largely been state sponsored, with private sector activity also, to some degree, dependent on public sector contracts.
“Accordingly, many parts of the country have become strongly reliant on redistributed state funds and thus will be hugely vulnerable to any planned cuts.”
The newly established Office for Budget Responsibility has forecast more than 610,000 job losses in the public sector nationally.
The report also predicts the cuts will spread into the wider economy because public sector contracts will dry up and people will have less money to spend.
It said: “Unless the spending cuts are carefully managed at a local level, the Government risks forcing parts of the country into a spiral of decline.
“The chasm left by the decline of heavy industry, combined with a weak private sector presence, could widen further still the North-South divide and place significant new demands on some of Britain’s most challenged places.
“Without support to help peripheral local economies shift away from state-sponsored jobs, the prospects for some of them will be bleak.”
TUC Regional Secretary Alan Manning said: “This scale of job losses in Manchester and Liverpool will be a hammer blow to the region’s economy, as well as to the individual families and communities who are now paying the price for the bankers recession.”
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'Proud to serve the public’ is a North West TUC campaign to protect and promote public services in our Region. We believe public services are a vital part of the North West economy. They create jobs, stimulate growth and... 
Cllr Jonathan Reynolds, Labour, Stalybridge and Hyde
Jane Rogers, grandmother
I think its right all these cuts,when labour was in they were making management jobs for them selfs, too many cheifs and not enough indians. well done new goverment.
Dont be ridiculous. Public servants are librarians, care assistants, lollipop ladies,lab technicians, hospital porters, classroom assistants, etc, etc. If you think that, at the very least, people’s quality of life will not be affected by putting these people on the dole, then you are a complete fool.